But a new study by Reboot Online says they have pretty good evidence suggesting otherwise. Go ahead, read the study and see how they concluded that "we have proved they do have a positive impact if used correctly." In fact, Rand Fishkin of Moz posted on Twitter that his "conclusion" is that "linking out to good sites is almost certainly a net benefit for how Google considers your pages."

Here are his tweets:

Conclusion: linking out to good sites is almost certainly a net benefit for how Google considers your pages.